The Houston housing market made some major strides in May and increased the number of single-family homes sales by 23.8 percent compared to a year ago, according to the Houston Association of Realtors (HAR). Due to the sale of homes $250,000 and up, average and median home prices rose in May.

San Diego County is in for a second wave of foreclosures, and this time, it will be even bigger than before, according to Blue Sky Capital, a San Diego-based real estate investment firm. Blue Sky Capital tracked area properties and found that mortgages funded with Option Arm and Alt-A are about to see higher interest rates.

For the first quarter of 2012, the number of Mortgage Loan Fraud (MLF) Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) submitted decreased 31 percent to 17,651 over a one-year period, according to a Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) report. In the first quarter of 2011, 25,485 MLF SARs were submitted. The high level of submissions a year ago was fueled by mortgage loan repurchase demands, which prompted reviews of dated mortgages, according to FinCEN.

Following the news from Case-Shiller that home prices rose in April for the first time in seven months, IHS Global Insight and Capital Economics both released commentaries speculating on the unexpected news and the housing market's future. IHS attributed the uptick in prices to three factors: Current low mortgage rates, strong investor demand, and a drop in homeowners listing their homes for sale. Capital Economics pointed to tight supply conditions as a cause for the price gain and said that these conditions are unlikely to last with foreclosure and short-sale processes happening quicker than before.

A civil litigation case brought on by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against two former portfolio managers with Bear Stearns received approval from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The court approved the settlement on June 18, 2012, and Ralph R. Cioffi and Matthew M. Tannin were ordered to pay a total of $1.05 million in disgorgement and civil penalties, the SEC announced Monday. The SEC's complaint, which was first filed June 19, 2008, alleged that the Bear Stearns funds collapsed in June 2007 due to risky subprime mortgage-backed securities.

Increases in all aspects of Freddie Mac's total mortgage portfolio led to a higher (but still negative) annualized growth rate, according to the GSE's Monthly Volume Summary for May. The summary showed that Freddie Mac's total mortgage portfolio for the month shrank at an annualized rate of 9.4 percent, a drop from 14.1 percent in April but still far above March's 2.9 percent contraction rate. The negative annualized growth rate YTD is 6.8 percent.

The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) of Tampa Bay has a new member in Nationwide Title Clearing (NTC), the company announced Monday.

The Hopp Law Firm, LLC announced Friday that Aaron Boneau has signed on as the firm's operations manager.

Butler & Hosch, P.A. announced that Stephanie Goble, the firm's VP of title operations, has been accepted for a vice chair position in the American Bar Association.

The Case-Shiller Home Price Indexes rose for the first time in eight months in April, Standard & Poor's reported Tuesday The 10- and 20-city indexes each rose 1.3 percent, to the highest levels this year. Year-over-year, the 10-city index was down 2.2 percent and the 20-city index off 1.9 percent, both improving from March.